


Waiting

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life [20]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8773174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Waiting to leave ...





	

She tried to stay asleep. She tried not to move around too much to wake him up. She tried to remember that those bodies weren’t touching her, sliding their cold, stiff fingers across her arm, sending shivers down her spine, calling out to her in silent voices to find out who they were, why this occurred, where they came from.

That they needed her to tell their families what happened to them, to tell them that they didn’t leave them behind on purpose, to tell them that this wasn’t their fault.

There were enough thoughts churning her brain to drive her from her shared bed, hating to leave a place that made her more comfortable than she’d been in the last week but the stillness she lay in seemed to make the thoughts worse. Moving silently to the other bed, she sat cross-legged in the middle, staring at the window, the sparse light hovering around the edges of the curtains as good as she was going to get, given the bathroom light would wake Mulder and begin a litany of questions that, at the moment, would just make her cry.

Although, truth be told, she really should have known it wouldn’t take long for him to wake up, noticing the warmth beside him now conspicuously absent.

His voice carried quietly to her ears, full of sleep and softness and unformed anxiety, gravelly in its delivery yet velvet with concern, “You okay?”

In the darkness, she could just make out his angled head, silhouette only, tilted in question, body held up on one elbow, shoulder sloped at 90 degrees, one line running to the valley of his neck, the other downhill towards an invisible elbow and wrist, disappearing into the sheets.

God, he was beautiful, even hidden in the shadows and she couldn’t find the strength to lie to him, even if she’d found the courage, “not really.”

After a very short fight with the tangle of covers, he shuffled to her spot, climbing unceremoniously to her side, long legs crooking in a haphazard circle around her, his chest now against her upper arm. Pulling her against him, he tucked her head snuggly against his neck, arms loosely encompassing. Oddly, he didn’t say a word, just held her, breathing into the crown of her head, warming her from the top down.

It was the silence that drove the first tear from her eye, then the second, the rest rushing down in torrents after that, soaking his collar and eventually the rest of his shirt. He remained quiet as her hand alternately clutched his thigh and kneaded the muscle, her fingers unconscious to there actions.

Mulder knew she was calming back down when that same hand finally relaxed against him, lying flat, fingers loose over the curve of his leg which was now hot beneath her palm, “why didn’t you ask me what was wrong?”

Speaking into her hair, his throat vibrating against her temple, “sometimes you just need to let people cry first. It kills me to see you cry but I know that it’s the only way for you to let things out so I’ll hold you until you’re done and ready to tell me.”

Scully leaned more heavily against him, snuggling closer, burrowing further into his embrace, “but what if I don’t want to tell you?”

“Then I’d keep holding you anyway.”

And he did, until she began speaking in a low voice, “it’s one thing to deal with two or three bodies. I mean, it’s terrible but my brain can work with it, compartmentalize it, redirect it, but this many, Mulder, my God. I’ve done 20 autopsies in 6 days. I’ve had help with the scut but all the cutting’s been me and I’ve done the paperwork for them all; dwelling for hours on end and searching for clues, even the slightest hint that might drive one more nail into the coffin of the fucking devil himself but in doing that, I can’t keep ahead of the nightmare.”

“Why didn’t you fill me in sooner? You know I would have come out here in a heartbeat.”

“I know you would have and I love you for it but you needed to take care of your mom. I’ll get a grip eventually but your mom is your mom.”

Knowing she was right, he nuzzled through her hair, nose breathing deep, “but I’m here now. How come you woke up?”

“Telling you eventually, Mulder, does not mean immediately.” Pulling back, she looked at him with heavy eyes, her dark circles much more evident now that the light wasn’t there to wash them away, “and right now, I really just want to get dressed and go finish the last two bodies.”

“Then let’s get dressed and go do that.”

She shook her head, “stay here and sleep. I can go myself but I just … right now, I need to go do something.”

Drawing her back to him, he left a lingering kiss on the corner of her eye, tasting the traces of salt left behind, “two sets of eyes are better than one and you know it so no arguing.”

She decided not to, turning her head to give his mouth a quick slip of her lips in thanks, “you are a very nice boy.”

“Yes. Now, go get dressed.”

“I already am.”

Storing up the kiss in his memory banks quickly, he ran a hand over her flannel-clad knee, “these are pajamas, Agent Scully.”

“Yes and it’s,” glancing at the clock behind his shoulder, “2:17am. Not many people are going to see me and if they do, they’ll be too tired to care. I’ll need to change into scrubs anyways when I get there so why not be comfortable for a few more minutes.”

“Then I’m going in my pajamas as well.”

She could feel the smoothness of basketball shorts and she shrugged, “go for it.”

Sooner than later, they were heading to the morgue, Mulder amazed at how easily she spoke to the guard inside the door and the light conversation they exchanged before she introduced Mulder and continued them on their way. As they silently trekked the halls, “you have been here most nights, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been working some really … odd … hours this week. Luckily no one cares as long as I get everything done. We all just want to ID these poor people and watch Morton burn.”

Talking her fingers in his loosely, “you really need a vacation, young lady.”

Scully was the one who tightened her grip, “you haven’t read the reports yet.”

She pulled everything together for him, the box of files sliding heavily across the conference table in the autopsy bay, Mulder settling in to read while she did her own work.

&&&&&&&&&

Around 4am, she dropped down on the stool beside him, “ready to scream and go to Disney World for a week in hopes that Mickey and Donald will be able to erase the horrors now burned permanently into your retinas?”

He didn’t look up, “this guy is completely and utterly insane. He has to be. Even an ounce of reason would have kept him from doing at least the most terrifying things. He may have still killed them but at least he might not have done,” turning one last photo, he winced, sucking in air through his gritted teeth hard, “that.”

Scully moved her hand to his cheek, tilting his face away from the files, deciding now was the time to answer his early question, “I elected to do all the autopsies myself. I wanted to save Brian from having to take that,” indicating the picture Mulder still had in his hands, “home to his wife and three kids.”

“He better have taken you out to dinner at least once.”

Leaning on her elbow, hand now holding back floppy hair, “he goes home at 5pm and doesn’t come back until 9am, after he’s dropped the two younger ones off at school. He has dinner with them every night, he reads them a story before bed and he calls his wife on his lunch hour. There is no way I could ever invade that or disrupt that or taint that in any way so no, he has not taken me out to dinner. He has brought me leftovers for lunch but that is the extent of my disturbance to his home life and I am perfectly okay with that.”

“I understand that you doing the cutting keeps him from getting his hands dirty but he sees the paperwork and the bodies and the photos, so you’re not really protecting him from anything, right?”

Scully shook her head, eyes cast downward for a moment before lifting to meet his, her weary soul evident, “he may see the photos and read the reports and deduce his own conclusions but there is something totally different about cutting into someone who’s already been so violated, so damaged and ravaged. There’s a guilt there, Mulder, a guilt that sits on your chest because this person, this victim has already been through enough yet you are there to do more violence to them. Brian is a very good doctor, a very good man, a very good father but he has not done this kind of work here. This is a small town with friendly people. Morton was a stranger, an invader and he bought all that is evil with him. I told him I would do them because I was once him and I wish someone had been there to do that for me.”

In a voice quiet enough that she had to lean forward to hear him, “I had no idea. You never told me.”

“I’m not telling you now to make you feel guilty, I swear. I’m just telling you why this week worked out how it did.” Falling even more forward, she met his forehead with hers, “if I had ever told you that, you never would have let me do anything again and I would have come to hate you for it and I wouldn’t be here with you now, waiting to go on the epic road trip. There is kitsch to see in this world and I’m going to go see it with my Mulder.”

“You’re going to make me cry.”

Rubbing her nose lightly with his, “you want to get out of here for a few hours, maybe find some food, go back to sleep?”

“I don’t think I can eat after that but I probably could use some more sleep. I don’t think I napped at all on the way out here.”

“That was silly.”

“I know but I wanted to get here and I was fueled by sugar and a beautiful destination, so you can’t blame me?”

“Oakton, Iowa in the dark is beautiful?”

Knowing she was teasing, he volleyed back, “I was thinking more of the visiting pathologist but whatever.”

Sliding off her stool, “let me go get my pajamas back on and we can go.”

“I’ll be here.”

&&&&&&&&&&

She automatically moved to lay beside him, burrowing under covers and under his hands, touching from temple to toe, “when is checkout today?”

“Shit.” She sat back up, “I totally forgot to cancel my plane ticket. I’m supposed to fly out of here tonight at 6:25.”

Yanking her arm gently out from underneath her, “I canceled that two days ago. I just want to know because I think we should return your car after we check out of here, then I’ll go with you to the morgue and once you’re done there, we can head out to all points way the hell far away from here.”

She’d wobbled, then crashed onto his chest and deciding to just stay there, she mumbled into his t-shirt, “works for me.”

“Definitely works for me.”

“Are you referring to me laying on you or the plan you came up with?”

“What do you think?”

Without another word, she fell asleep cocooned for the next few hours someplace safe and perfect.


End file.
